Prevaricate
by EmmaMary
Summary: This was too familiar, and the only thing he wants to do is collapse. Everything around him is just a blur of color, spinning and swirling as Taylor remains the only thing in focus. RyanxTaylor


**AN- Its not edited, sorry guys. If you want to do it, let me know, lol. Hope you enjoy! And please review; I've had a hard day.**

**Disclaimer- On user page but I own nothing. **

**prevaricate** \prih-VAIR-uh-kayt\, _intransitive verb_:  
To depart from or evade the truth; to speak with equivocation.

**

* * *

**

The gravel crumples under the steady wind of four large tires. Pictures are formed continuously before the passenger's in the appearance of a barren landscape. The dusty sand is settled in an established quiet as the select tree and tumbleweeds sit wantonly upon it. For some this landscape would be serene, calming, but for the two college students it is nothing but boring, the newness and intrigue of it is now gone, for they have traveled it many times.

The large black car is the only sound for miles besides the quiet scamper of the few creatures that hide beneath the hot sand.

Inside the car is just as silent as its surroundings. There is no music sifting through the passenger's ears, and no words wafting past their lips, just the gentle puffs of breath. It is a comfortable silence, however, one that has taken over a year to compose.

The coolness the glass of the window once brought to the young girl's forehead has been lost due to her body heat. The sleep she was trying to find, she decides, will not come.

"How much longer," she whines.

"Not long, an hour maybe," her boyfriend replies.

"Can you put the AC up any more?"

"Are you really that hot Tay?" he coos, taking one of his large hands away from the steering wheel and laying it casually across her forehead. "Wow, I think you may be more than car sick," he replies after feeling her burning flesh on his hand.

"Ugh," is the only reply he gets from her.

"Well I'll put the air up as high as it can go, why don't you lie down in the back."

Taylor nods quietly as the cars is swerved concisely to the side of the rode before halting. She takes herself out of the car, sits herself in the back seat, closes the door, and flops herself down horizontally before her boyfriend even has a chance to unbuckle his seatbelt to help her, which he was defiantly going to.

"Tay, lemme know if you want anything else okay?"

"Mhmm."

"Okay, let's get you home," he says before starting up the ignition again.

"I love you Ryan," Taylor muffles before drifting asleep.

"I love you too," he says to her already sleeping form.

* * *

When Ryan spots the sign that tells him Glendale is but five minutes away, he gets off on the next exit.

Taylor's forehead shimmers with drops of sweat and her breath has gotten heavy. Ryan decided she needed to get something in her to get her fever down, and he didn't even want to guess what it is up to now. He tries to deny it to himself, but he is actually a little scared.

He decides he will buy a thermometer too, and decide what to do from there.

For some reason he has the urge to jog into the Super Wal-Mart rather than walk casually. She isn't dying, he tells himself, he just doesn't want her to wake up all alone, sick, not knowing just where she is.

His feet clamper on the cheap white tile as he walks quickly past bustling mothers with screaming children and people maneuvering their metal carts in and out of the isle ways.

Taylor is still sleeping when he returns to the car. Ryan wakes her up to find that she is a little brighter than he expected.

"Here," he says handing her the new thermometer while she smiles at him, "we need to take your temperature."

"Why?" She asks, a ghost of a smile appearing on her face.

"Um, well," he stammers, "just to make sure it's not off the charts or anything."

"I don't think its high enough for you to worry." She smirks, promptly sticking the cool glass into her mouth with a smile.

His back is too her as he sits on the edge of the back seat, the door open and his legs sticking out.

She has a sudden urge to be near him, and she wraps her arms around his waist, her chest almost flush with his back as he fiddles with something else in the plastic grocery bag.

A minute passes and he reaches back ever so slightly just to take the thermometer out of her mouth, but not enough to warrant her letting go of him.

"100.6."

"See, I'm sick, but I'm not dying."

He smiles shyly at her as he hands her an open water bottle and two round capsules. She downs them without question and Ryan notices her eyes are still glassy with sickness and exhaustion.

"Go back to sleep, we'll be home in an hour or so."

Taylor just nods and he stands from the seat.

"Thank you for taking care of me Ryan," she says smiling up at him.

He kisses her head softly in response, and clicks the door shut as she topples down on the cool leather, her head behind the driver's seat.

She has no idea what she ever did to deserve him, but to be cliché; she wouldn't trade it for the world.

* * *

Ryan smiles to himself when he realizes Taylor is already asleep as he exits the parking lot.

He worries too much, he knows it. It is almost like an oxymoron of sorts, a known secret. He is Ryan Atwood, the boy without a care, but those who knew him best knew when it came to the people in his life, care was his middle name.

He is six cars back from the light that he has to go through before making his way back onto the freeway.

The blue Honda in front of him is driven by a clean looking man, two car seats are held in the back, and Ryan can make out two sleeping little girls, a blond, and a red head. As he looks at Taylor's sleeping form in the back he cannot help but smile at the fact that she is the only one in the world that knows he want little girls. Sure boys are great too, but if he had to choose between all girls or all boys, girls would defiantly be his pick.

The light turns cautiously to green as the blazing sun beats down on the earth, and Ryan has to squint for moment to avoid being blinded by its glaring rays.

When he opens his eyes fully the world shifts. No longer is he living in seconds, but a hundredth of that. Everything begins to move in slow motion.

The honking of a horn lasts for hours as he looks to its source, a bright green pickup truck with a man behind the wheel. His eyes are wide in astonishment; Ryan's are wide in horror. That boy can not be more that seventeen, he thinks, his eyes hold a sheen almost like Taylor's had, what was it, only moments before? The boy is speeding towards Ryan, his horn honking, but he shows no sign of stopping.

His face gleams with sweat as the smile tries to disappear from his face, Ryan has no idea how he notices all of this is what should be no more than one second.

He floors the petal in an attempt to get away, turns the steering wheel hard to the left, away from the oncoming truck. His eyes catch Taylor's fragile face in the mirror at the last second. He is astonished that the blaring horns have not awakened her, they've been screaming for what seems like forever.

There is an odd sense that something is off, besides, of course, that a car is about to ram into them. There is only the sound of horns this time, not the sound of a young girl's last breath screaming for him to watch out.

Before he knows it time replenishes itself and a million sounds drift into Ryan's mind. Tires screech against hot asphalt as the annihilation of metal deafens his ears. He feels his head fall forward harshly and then back again.

Then everything goes black.

* * *

It cannot be a minute later before he wakes up. The stench of gasoline is the first thing that filters into his brain. He hears people screaming loudly, and the sound of children's cries. He hopes to god the car in front of him hasn't been hit too.

His eyes open cautiously and he feels a hand on his shoulder.

"Taylor," he coughs, not expecting the words to mar his chest so badly.

"We have to get you out of this car, there is gas everywhere." The voice is far from familiar and a sense of panic sets in.

He, along with the help from the stranger, pulls himself from the wreck of the car.

"Taylor," he mutters again.

"What?" the man questions.

"Taylor was in the car, where is she?"

"There was someone else in the car with you?"

If his ribs didn't hurt so badly Ryan would have punched this guy in the face, but a second later the man is screaming to someone else that there is a girl in the car, and there is a bustle that tells him they are going to get her out, hopefully.

Ryan's vision comes to full clarity and he notices that the man who he is leaning on is the man with the daughters in the car in front of him. They must be okay. Ryan only feels the slightest hint of relief.

As he senses come back to him he realizes Taylor was not buckled in the car, and she was stretched fully out along the back, the force alone could have very well killed her.

He spins around, surprised that he does not falter, and wants to cry when he sees that the tail end of the truck only hit the front side of the car, and not the back seat at all.

'So then where the hell was she!' He thought.

He runs to the car as the young father tries to stop him, Taylor is lying, unconscious on the floor of the back seat. He can tell at least her arm is broken, for it is lying in a very erring angle above her head.

She needs to get out of the car and he knows it. The smell of gas is filling the air and he only expects some sort of fire.

He freezes for a moment. Belief is beyond him at this point.

Ryan would not do this again; he would not pull the girl he loves out of a burning car only to have her lifeless eyes close in his arms. He would not watch another person he loves die in his arms.

Especially not this girl, not Taylor.

He didn't think he would love again after Marissa, but when Taylor came into his life she brought out a side in him he had never known before. She let him love again, let him love more. He never said it out loud, for fear of disrespecting the dead or something, he wasn't quite sure, but he long ago realized he loved Taylor more now than he would have ever been able to love Marissa.

He was not going to let Taylor die.

But what is he supposed to do, he is afraid to move her, for all he knows she could have a broken neck, moving her could paralyze her, or worse, kill her.

She hadn't been wearing a seat belt, and the fact that the whiplash he was experiencing was harshly painful, he knew whatever had been done to her frail body was a million times worse.

Yet then he saw the real reason no one was pulling her from the dangerous wreckage, for slung across her waist was the single middle seat belt. Ryan hadn't even notice her put it on. Now it is holding most of her body slightly up, and when Ryan takes a better look at her, he realizes she look fine, despite her arm.

The right window was entirely smashed, and the seatbelt had traveled down her legs in the crash, it had been enough to keep her from flying dourly forward or her head from smashing into the door, but now it was almost too far away to reach, and had twisted itself in and odd way around her legs.

"Does anyone have a knife!" Ryan yells as loud as he can. He thinks he saw a flicker of a flame from the corner of his eye, and he knows Taylor has to get out of the car fast.

A pocket knife is shoved into Ryan's hands, and he gently opens the door Taylor's broken arm was up against. Luckily her arm falls onto her chest and Ryan quickly puts his knee on an open area of the car floor near her head, stretching his body up too her legs he begins cutting furiously at the seatbelt.

He hears someone yell something about flames and his heart speeds up.

He is almost done cutting, and grabs her legs with one arm for support and unwinds the belt with the other until she is free. Laying her legs down softly on the floor he quickly scampers out and swoops her into his arms.

When he emerged the entire front of the car was on fire.

Tears pool from his eyes as he carries her to where the man with the two little girls stands a good distance away.

This was too familiar, and the only thing he wants to do is collapse.

He kneels behind the man's car, placing Taylor lightly on the ground; Marissa's face flashing before his eyes.

No, he tells himself, this time will be different. It has to be different.

He couldn't live if it wasn't different.

There were few people on the scene as he hears the sirens blare. Ryan doesn't even bother to check and see if the guy who ran into them was hurt or not. Everything around him is just a blur of color, spinning and swirling as Taylor remains the only thing in focus.

"Taylor," he chokes as a paramedic comes to retrieve her from Ryan's arms. He was suddenly very aware of the pain in his chest. "Taylor, baby, please open your eyes."

A tear falls from his face onto hers.

She doesn't open her eyes.

* * *

**If I get good replies, I will write a sequel. **


End file.
